研究显示，土狼喜欢吃猫和人类的垃圾

研究显示，土狼喜欢吃猫和人类的垃圾

City-dwelling coyotes will eat just about anything – especially your pet cat.

居住在城市的土狼几乎会吃任何东西——尤其是你的宠物猫。

According to a collaborative study from researchers at California State University, Northridge (CSUN) and the National Park Service (NPS), canines in Los Angeles are less picky than their suburban and rural cousins, opting to dine on the finer things in life like garbage, fruit, and domestic cats. Such dietary adaptations have contributed to coyotes’ success in urban environments in nearly every city in North America.

加州州立大学北岭分校(CSUN)和国家公园管理局(NPS)的研究人员进行的一项合作研究显示，洛杉矶的狗狗不像郊区和农村的狗狗那么挑剔，它们会选择吃生活中比较好的食物，比如垃圾、水果和家猫。这种饮食上的适应性使得郊狼在北美几乎每个城市的城市环境中都获得了成功。

Madison Dapcevich

“They are omnivores, which means they will eat practically anything that fits in their mouths,” CSUN biology professor Tim Karels said in a statement. “Because they will eat anything, coyotes can live practically anywhere — from downtown LA to the urban neighborhoods around CSUN, to the mountains that surround the region and everywhere in between. While they eat a lot of garbage, they also eat a lot of the fruit found on the ground and, yes, domestic cats.”

“它们是杂食动物，这意味着它们几乎可以吃进嘴里任何东西，”CSUN生物学教授Tim Karels在一份声明中说。“因为它们什么都吃，所以土狼几乎可以生活在任何地方——从洛杉矶市中心到CSUN附近的城市社区，再到该地区周围的山脉，以及这两者之间的任何地方。虽然它们吃很多垃圾，但它们也吃很多在地上找到的水果，是的，还有家猫。”

Karels collaborated with biology graduate student Rachel N. Larson, and Justin L. Brown and Seth P. D. Riley of Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, as well as 150 citizen science volunteers to determine what food sources coyotes relied on and how urban coyotes eat differently than those further removed from the city. Researchers dissected scat, the poop of wild animals, found at sites across Los Angeles and the neighboring cities of Westlake Village and Thousand Oaks looking for fur, feathers, bones, seeds, and insects – anything to identify what the animals were eating. They also collected and analyzed whiskers collected by NPS to determine their stable isotope ratios to determine the type and quantity of chemicals from food sources. Their findings were published in PLOS ONE.

Karels与生物学研究生Rachel N. Larson、圣塔莫尼卡山国家娱乐区的Justin L. Brown和Seth P. D. Riley，以及150名公民科学志愿者合作，以确定郊狼的食物来源，以及城市郊狼的饮食与那些远离城市的郊狼有何不同。研究人员解剖了野生动物粪便scat，这是在洛杉矶、邻近城市韦斯特莱克村和千棵棵橡树上发现的，寻找皮毛、羽毛、骨头、种子和昆虫——任何能确定这些动物吃什么的东西。他们还收集和分析了NPS收集的晶须，以确定它们的稳定同位素比率，从而确定来自食物来源的化学物质的种类和数量。他们的研究结果发表在《公共科学图书馆·综合》杂志上。

Such dietary adaptations have contributed to coyotes’ success in urban environments in nearly every city in North America. Tim Karels/CUSN

“What we were looking for was corn, which is very distinctive from plants naturally found in Southern California. Corn is the base of the American diet. People eat corn. Corn syrup is used in many processed foods, including bread. Corn is fed to livestock and poultry, which humans, in turn, eat,” said Larsen.

“我们要找的是玉米，它与自然生长在南加州的植物非常不同。玉米是美国人饮食的基础。人们吃玉米。玉米糖浆用于许多加工食品，包括面包。玉米被用来喂养牲畜和家禽，而人类反过来又吃它们。”拉森说。

“If the coyote whiskers had high levels of carbon-13, which signifies the presence of corn, then it could only have come from coyotes eating lots of human food,” Larson explained. “Needless to say, for those coyotes living in urban Los Angeles, we found they were eating a lot of human food, mostly found in the trash we humans leave behind.”

拉尔森解释说:“如果土狼的胡须中含有大量的碳13，这意味着玉米的存在，那么这些碳13只能来自于吃了大量人类食物的土狼。”“不用说，对于那些生活在洛杉矶市区的土狼来说，我们发现它们吃了很多人类的食物，大部分是在我们人类丢弃的垃圾中发现的。”

It was thought that both urban and rural coyotes would be shown to eat similar amounts of human-related food. Rather, suburban coyotes were much pickier eaters. Around two-thirds of urban coyotes had evidence of human-related items in their scat as opposed to just one-third of suburban coyotes. In particular, ornamental fruits and cats were eaten by coyotes, though it is thought that most of the cats were feral (but not all). Human trash was not commonly found in the scat but whisker analysis showed that up to 38 percent of both urban and rural coyotes’ diet could be human food leftovers. Though urban coyotes stuck largely to their traditional rabbit and rodent diet, the canines still ate a lot of garbage.

人们曾认为，城市和农村的郊狼会吃同样数量的与人类有关的食物。相反，郊区的郊狼更挑食。大约三分之二的城市土狼的粪便中有与人类相关的物质，而只有三分之一的郊区土狼有此证据。特别是，观赏水果和猫被土狼吃，虽然人们认为大多数猫是野生的(但不是所有的)。人类垃圾在粪便中并不常见，但whisker的分析显示，多达38%的城市和农村郊狼的饮食可能是人类的食物残渣。虽然城市土狼在很大程度上仍以兔子和啮齿动物为食，但它们仍吃大量垃圾。

“Coyotes are part of the urban environment,” said Karels. “We’ve created this ecosystem, it’s a new ecosystem from an evolutionary point of view, but it is one that some species are quickly adapting to. Skunks, raccoons, and opossums have all adapted to living in an urban environment. A carnivore, the coyote, has adapted as well.”

“郊狼是城市环境的一部分，”Karels说。“我们创造了这个生态系统，从进化的角度来看，这是一个新的生态系统，但有些物种很快就适应了。臭鼬、浣熊和负鼠都已经适应了城市生活。食肉动物郊狼也适应了。”